Market short-term outlook remains negative

Viet Nam’s benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange inched up 0.12 per cent to finish last week at 898.19 points, decreasing 1.76 per cent on a weekly basis.— VNA/VNS Photo Banks and petroleum companies helped cushion the market on Friday, but the near-term outlook for the Vietnamese stock market remained pessimistic, according to analysts and securities firms. Viet Nam’s benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange inched up 0.12 per cent to finish last week at 898.19 points, decreasing 1.76 per cent on a weekly basis. The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange gained nearly 2 per cent on Friday to end at 103.01 points and closed last week level. The local stock market underwent a volatile trading week as investors remained cautious on a shortage of supportive news, the potential risks of China-US trade tensions, and worries about further Fed rate hikes. Caution among investors resulted in weak trading liquidity with an average of 189 million shares traded on the two local exchanges in each session, worth VND3.93 trillion (US$174.6 million). There was big differentiation among group stocks and they took turns to help prevent the market indices from falling further during the week. Weighing on the markets were property developer Vingroup (VIC) and its sub-unit Vinhomes (VHM), dairy producer Vinamilk (VNM) and consumer holding firm Masan (MSN). In contrast, banks and energy firms made gains to offset the underperformance of food and beverage and real estate stocks. VPBank (VPB) and HDBank… [Read full story]